Snapshots
by MoonlightGardenias
Summary: Ten drabble length glimpses at different characters and pairings.


**Author's Note: I haven't written anything for Grey's recently, mostly because I've been focused particularly on another fandom, but I kind of wanted to take this on as a challenge. Ten drabbles (a hundred words, give or take a few. In my case, it ended up being more than a few some of the time.) based on one word that comes from a random word generator. Use the word that comes, any ship or character you choose.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy or the characters thereof. They are property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC.**

* * *

**1. Fading (Alex), 165 words**

He can't remember her face.

It hits him like a ton of bricks when he's in the middle of a forty-eight hour shift, makes him stop dead in the middle of the hall. Brown eyes, blond hair-before it was shaved off-but other than that, her features are a blur.

He waits patiently until his shift is over, praying constantly the patients don't read the panic on his face, before racing home and opening a box under his bed. Mer would laugh at him for sure, because what guy actually keeps a memory box? Rather than pulling everything out and scattering it all over the place, he finds himself staring at a solitary picture. It was of them with Izzie wrapped tightly in his embrace, the brightest smile on her face as if she'd forgotten all the pain she must have been feeling that day.

Alex lets out a sigh before quietly putting the picture away and slipping the box back under his bed.

* * *

**2. Clenched (Derek), 145 words**

According to Meredith and the Chief, he did everything he could. It doesn't stop Derek from picturing the little boy that had been laying on his operating table just hours before.

By all accounts, he should have been able to save him. A textbook injury even an intern could have assited with and had it not been for the fact the boy's father happened to be a powerful attorney in the Seattle area, he probably would have passed the case off to Meredith.

There had been too much blood, more than there should have been, and in the end, Derek simply couldn't save him.

It wasn't his fault. That doesn't stop him from carefully unclenching his jaw and downing the last of his scotch in one gulp. His knuckles are an almost pure white around the neck of the bottle, but he doesn't mind.

* * *

**3. Grouch (Mark), 269 words**

He realizes he's being too mean, but it's something he can't exactly help. Well, if he were being perfectly honest with himself he could, but seeing as he and Lexie are making plans for moving in together he knows it wouldn't be the greatest idea.

She left for her, of all things, family reunion, nearly three days before. It feels like weeks to him. He tries convincing himself it doesn't mean anything that he wakes up each morning since she left asking himself what day it is, or that him actually making up excuses for why she hasn't texted him back yet isn't a sign of weakness.

"I asked for extra caramel in my macciato, and I'm pretty sure I remember asking for no whipped cream. Are you asking to get put on scut work, or have I not made myself clear?"

The intern he's decided to yell at simply shakes her head in reply.

"Wait," Mark calls just as she turns to walk away. "I'd like my change."

* * *

**4. Engagement (MerDer), 100 words**

They've never been the ones to go about things the normal way. Kisses in elevators and secret wives, not to mention sex in exam rooms aside.

Marraige by post-it note was just one more to be added to a list of things that made them essentially who they were. Though Meredith knows it isn't real, that it's still not legal, she's content knowing they're together and committed in a way she knows no one else really understands.

She doesn't need the dress and he doesn't need the fancy ceremony. 'Engaged' sounds less formal than 'married', anyway. What they have is enough.

* * *

**5. Music (Cristina), 129 words**

Something Cristina discovered early on in her medical career was that sometimes, what she really needed was a release.

There would always be standing on top of the fan and feeling exhilerated as air rushed past her. However, what she loved more than anything else was to turn the music up louder than normal people would usually stand and to let it drown everything else out. What she loved was to have her arms and legs be pulsing to a fast beat rather than standing still over an open chest cavity. Not to say she didn't enjoy surgery because she certainly did, but music was something she craved in a different way.

It was something few people knew, and she'd already made them swear they'd never tell anyone else.

* * *

**6. Heavy (Addison), 102 words**

There was a certain weight that came with delivering a patient's family bad news. While she knew it, Addison never realized how hard it was to tell someone you knew exactly what they weren't waiting to hear.

Staring into Derek's steel blue eyes, she almost felt the hope slowly ebbing from him. Seperating emotions from the job was hard enough not having the patient's loved one be the person you used to be married to.

"She's lost a lot of blood, it's hard to say at this point." Her voice shook as she tried to remain calm. "I'll do everything I can."

* * *

**7. Lock (Slexie), 122 words**

Lexie was standing at the nurses' station filling out paperwork when she felt Mark walk up behind her. He opened her palm and placed something solid and metallic inside her hand. She didn't have to look to know what it was.

Mark counted the seconds it took her to register what it meant. He hoped more than anything he wasn't wrong.

The grooves on the key worked their way into her palm, not painful but rather a steady reminder; just like Mark had inexplicably found his way into her heart. "Mark?"

The question in her eyes let him know she wasn't upset so much as curious. "I bought the apartment. I just...I wanted you to have that. For whenever you're ready."

* * *

**8. Fancy (Cristina/Owen), 162 words**

The resteraunt, the one they had to call twice to push back their reservation for due to Cristina being stuck in surgery, was much more formal than even he had intended. She's beautiful standing on the sidewalk with her hair modestly styled. It was the most she could do with the locker room mirror he supposed, not that it really mattered because he found her beautiful either way.

"Are we going to go inside?" Cristina asks calmly. She had been the one to show up late and yet Owen was suddenly the one to be hesitant to go inside.

They were doing things the right way by finally going out as a couple, but no matter how hard he tried to convince himself it just didn't feel right. While he'd been trying hard to impress her, he realized in that moment that he really didn't have to. "What do you say about just going back to my place and ordering some chinese?"

* * *

**9. Mourn (Addex/Azzie), 113 words**

"You came."

"Of course I did. Stevens is...was, one of the brightest and most promising surgeons I have ever advised."

Alex shook his head and smiled sadly. He stared up at the cloudy sky above them and tried hard to remember what it was like. Memories were all he would ever have. "How do you get over someone? How do you just stop acting like they exist?"

Addison sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You don't."

"You think that helps?" Alex bit back harshly. "Sorry, I just-"

"I know, Karev." Addison replied. She couldn't explain why, but she suddenly found herself pulling him in for a hug. She's always hated seeing anyone she cared about sad or in pain, but seeing those things in Alex made it worse. "I know."

* * *

**10. Dance (Izzie), 129 words**

A few days after her surgery, Izzie's strength had returned. She wasn't fully recovered and the doctors weren't sure if she ever would be, but it was enough to make her spirits lift.

"There is one thing I wish I could have gotten the other day." Izzie mused as she stared at the plastic toy ring Alex placed on her finger. To everyone else the ring didn't mean anything, they kept saying she could get a better one when she recovered, but to her it fit perfectly.

"What's that?" Alex asked. He looked up to see the first honest smile he'd seen her use in a long while.

It took all the strength she could muster, but with Alex's help she finally stood. "We never got our first dance."

* * *

**Okay, so I went over a hundred on pretty much all of them except one. That, and I kind of implied that Izzie was gone in two but then in the final one I made her be alive. It's fiction and we don't really know, do we? Anyway, I also including Addison because...well, she's Addison. She's an honorary Grey's member. (That, and I really do think if we end up getting a pregnant Meredith seeing as Ellen is expecting, she'll be back anyway. So guess you could say that one was kind of set in the future.)**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. If it's not too much trouble, click that purple/blue/whatever you wish to call it button and review. **


End file.
